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Subscription as investment
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Posted by apb123
May 14, 2019 at 05:06 PM
I actually go out my way to avoid subscriptions. I am happy to support a developed but regular payments are for mortgages, bills etc. As a principle if an app goes subscription I will ditch it. If enough of us do this hopefully the trend will stop
This is why I was so glad my beloved DEVONthink eschewed the subscription model.
Posted by Hugh
May 15, 2019 at 08:56 AM
I do favour a “mixed economy” of subscription and non-subscription applications, and I am happy to pay subscriptions for a limited number of applications where I believe that the application is good, the developer is skilled and diligent and the subscription is justified by the benefits that I gain from it. (And I rely on sites like this one to help me make those judgments.)
Posted by MadaboutDana
May 15, 2019 at 10:30 AM
In principle, Hugh, I follow the same thinking. However, when I realised just how many of my subscription apps were essentially offering much the same thing in a slightly different guise, I paused for thought and totted up the monthly bills - which were unexpectedly high.
So now I prioritise non-subscription apps over subscription ones, and am gradually removing all my subscriptions (with a couple of interesting exceptions, like Agenda, which IMHO hasn’t matured yet).
Apple could solve this at a stroke by supporting upgrades, but clearly their thinking runs counter to this concept.
Posted by Hugh
May 15, 2019 at 11:08 AM
When it comes to monitoring and pruning subs, I’ve found the subscription list maintained by Apple in my macOS App Store account useful, plus one of the simple iOS subscription-list apps for software that falls beyond the app stores. The one I use is, ironically perhaps, called Outflow.
Posted by Dr Andus
May 15, 2019 at 09:29 PM
For me it’s not so much about the principle of whether it’s a subscription or a one-off payment but whether it’s cross-platform with automatic sync (usually a web app with Android/iOS companions), which I prefer, or Windows only, which I don’t want to invest into any more.
As the cross-platform ones tend to be subscription-based services, those are the only ones I seem to be buying these days.
As there is a limit to how many subscriptions I’m willing to pay for, this means my CRIMPing has pretty much come to an end.
Instead, it’s more about replacing one subscription with another.